Tingle Tingle
by Twilight Scribe
Summary: I have no idea how I managed to do it and still keep my sanity, but here's a piping-hot batch of oneshots about one of Legend of Zelda's most reviled characters: Tingle. Enjoy.
1. Danse Macabre

Disclaimer: Caution: Speaking to, looking at, or even thinking of Tingle for extended periods of time can cause irreparable physical and emotional damage. In clinical tests, prolonged exposure to Tingle has been shown to cause cancer. Read at your own risk.

AN: Aye, so I was playing Windwaker again and decided to write a few things from that game's storyline since I had ideas and since I haven't done anything from there yet. Oddly enough, I really dislike Tingle. Funny, isn't it then, that I should write all these drabbles about him?

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**Danse Macabre**

"Tingle! Tingle!"

Link stared, transfixed by horror and disbelief, as the paunchy man began to prance and throw shining confetti. He could hardly believe his eyes. Surely this wasn't a genuine cartographical technique...

"Kooloo-limpah!"

The worst part, as if having glitter thrown at you and being forced to watch Tingle dance wasn't torture enough, was that the fairy-seeker's bodysuit was skintight. Link had to work hard to keep the blue potion he drank for lunch in his stomach where it belonged.

"Become... READABLE!"

Finally able to tear his eyes away from the horrific sight, Link noticed the Triforce Chart that Tingle handed back to him had, well, become readable. It was amazing, every indistinguishable design and rune that graced the square of parchment before Tingle did his stuff was rearranged into a recognizable, serviceable map. Absolutely fantastic! Now he could locate the first shard of the Triforce and continue in his quest.

Link was happy to have the chart, but there was just one little detail that made him sour about the whole deal. After seeing Tingle work, after learning exactly what his method was, Link had to wonder. If that was all it took- Just a few handfuls of glitter, some magic words, and a back flip- Then why was he paying Tingle three hundred and ninety-eight rupees for each chart he deciphered?!

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AN: Think about it, really. Tingle is a greedy, greedy little sot.

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	2. What Is This Stuff?

Disclaimer: Caution: Speaking to, looking at, or even thinking of Tingle for extended periods of time can cause irreparable physical and emotional damage. In clinical tests, prolonged exposure to Tingle has been shown to cause cancer. Read at your own risk.

AN: The quotes in this chapter... They're all real, taken directly from the Tingle Turner's "store" menu.

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**What Is This Stuff?**

Link eyed the bottle's sparkling contents suspiciously, trying to decide whether or not he really wanted to drink it. To be completely honest, he had no idea what the stuff was and, if Link could trust the man, neither did Tingle. Before the hero bought the portion of Kooloo-Limpah, Tingle very clearly told him that "Not even I know what may occur, sir! This is a test of your courage!"

Yeah... Why Link got the stuff anyway was a mystery, even to him, but it reinforced a rather disturbing trend he had noticed. Whenever Link called Tingle on the Tingle Tuner, the creepy fellow would arrive almost instantly and start hawking his questionable inventory before Link could even manage a simple "hello." The hero was beginning to suspect- Well, was practically convinced that Tingle was motivated by greed, not some silly obsession with fairies or a desire to aid in his quest to save the world. A fair assumption, to say the least.

Even stranger were the goods Tingle tried to sell him. Just what exactly was "Ting?" Link guessed, hoped, that it was just a potion that Tingle rebranded to suit his theme. All three colors of the stuff looked like potion and smelled like potion, but he couldn't be sure. And the things Tingle told him about each product were more than a little unsettling, especially what he said for Green Ting:

"Replenish your magic power with this! You can't survive without it, Mr. Fairy."

Just what did that mean?! The memory of that disturbing conversation definitely helped Link make up his mind. No, he decided, he would rather not drink the strange, unidentified serum that Tingle sold him, and poured the bottle of Kooloo-Limpah out onto the ground where it sizzled faintly.

Link didn't entirely trust Tingle, despite how helpful and courteous the man seemed to be. It too often felt like the guy was a ham actor overplaying his part. And besides, that Kooloo-Limpah was far too sparkly for Link's tastes.

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AN: Seriously, what is the "Ting" that's for sale in the Tingle Tuner shop? A second-rate, off-brand potion that Tingle brews himself on his lonely island? Yes, it must be the potion equivalent of moonshine! Either way, the whole affair seems questionable to me...

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	3. Where Did You Come From?

Disclaimer: Caution: Speaking to, looking at, or even thinking of Tingle for extended periods of time can cause irreparable physical and emotional damage. In clinical tests, prolonged exposure to Tingle has been shown to cause cancer. Read at your own risk.

AN: This is a truly terrifying thought I explore here. Read it, let it sink in, and I assure you... If you were in Link's position, it'd give you nightmares.

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**Where Did You Come From?!**

How did he get there so fast?! It never failed to shock Link just how quickly Tingle could arrive on the scene after being summoned with the Tingle Tuner. The sheer mechanics of it were mind-boggling.

Tingle lived in Tingle Tower on Tingle Island, that Link knew for a fact. And the places Link called him from, the Forbidden Forest, Dragon's roost, the Tower of the Gods... All those islands were at least a whole day's sail away from Tingle's home, yet the guy always showed up in seconds.

Could Tingle teleport? Maybe travel by cyclone? As far as Link knew, only he and Cyclos could do that, but if Tingle somehow figured it out... No. That couldn't be it. Tingle couldn't control the winds any more than he could decipher a chart for free. There had to be another explanation. What if...?

Link froze. What if Tingle was stalking him? Whenever he showed up he was always riding in that balloon contraption of his. What's to say he couldn't float a ways above Link at all times as he traveled the Great Sea? Like many other people, Link rarely looked higher than eye level when going about his business. Tingle could very well have been floating silently above his head the whole time, watching him!

Numb with horror, Link pulled out Aryll's Telescope and scanned the sky, searching for any hint of green or red in the vast field of blue. When, after almost a half hour of vigilance, he could still see nothing but sky and waves, Link put away the telescope. It seemed as if he was wrong, Tingle wasn't there after all. But as Link hoisted his sail, he could still feel the unpleasant prickling sensation of a pair of eyes fixed on his back...

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AN: Tingle is watching you.

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	4. No Escape

Disclaimer: Caution: Speaking to, looking at, or even thinking of Tingle for extended periods of time can cause irreparable physical and emotional damage. In clinical tests, prolonged exposure to Tingle has been shown to cause cancer. Read at your own risk.

AN: This one's only partially about Tingle! Yes, if you stuck with him through the last three oneshots, you now get a new character to focus on: The little-known Knuckle. Fun, isn't it?

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**No Escape**

Run. He had to run, run like a coward from the fate that awaited him. Or was he brave? A stubborn soul, struggling against hideous odds to change his stars? Either way, Knuckle refused to be confined on the goddess-forsaken spit of land that Tingle called home. He refused to be like his younger brothers, mindlessly and endlessly toiling under Tingle's watchful eye. Call him crazy, but Knuckle hungered for a life of more than itchy jumpsuits, rotating a large wooden statue, and gardening. As far as he was concerned, he had paid his dues with ten years of labor carving Tingle Tower and should be free to do as he pleased.

Why then, did he ever issue that challenge, why agree to be bound to return if found? It was stupid! It jeopardized everything! Tingle, he decided, must have secretly put some magical kooloo-limpah whammy on his brain. His older brother was known to do underhanded thing like that, like price gouging on deciphering charts.

Regardless of how it was done, it had been done, and now Knuckle needed to run harder than ever. The tracker, dressed entirely in green, that Tingle sent after him was inhuman. He looked just like an average little boy, but the kid was relentless. Knuckle knew the young tracker had been following him across the sea in his red ship, never once losing his trail among the ever-shifting waves, for almost a week now without sleep, food, or ever water. All the way from Tingle Island to Outset Island without pause, without fear of the fierce storms that whipped up regularly. Even the winds seemed to favor him, shifting to his back and giving him the speed needed to close the gap between them. Truly inhuman. Like one of the legendary heroes of old, only lured from the side of good to the side of Tingle.

Knuckle could still dream of escape as he hid in the well on Outset Island, not daring to make a sound. Yes, he could easily dream of a life of adventure on the high seas, mapping the still unknown regions of the world, but the reality of the situation was also clear to him. The tracker in green would find him and force him to honor his word. (Knuckle heard the kid had a sword...) He would be dragged back to Tingle Island and a life of happily weeding the garden like a lobotomized zombie. It wasn't fair!

He didn't sigh, for fear of alerting Tingle's henchman, but he could feel the anguish and despair like iron weights in his heart. Knuckle had a feeling he would be seeing his big brother again very soon.

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AN: I never trusted how Tingle has his brothers work for him. I also really hated the "finding Knuckle" mini-sidequest. (A hidden quest in Windwaker where you use the Tingle Tuner to track down Tingle's long-lost little brother Knuckle. It nets you a lot of rupees and a special Knuckle Tuner item that has a shop selling different items than the Tingle Tuner.) You can tell the guy does NOT want to come back, but relents and returns when you find him because the game is E-rated. What probably happened, knowing that family's preoccupation with fairies, is that Link forced Knuckle into a bottle at swordpoint and carted him back across the ocean to Tingle Island like that. Poor Knuckle...

On a lighter note, can you tell this oneshot was vaguely inspired by Sinistar? Yes, that Sinistar. (Run, run, run! Coward. Beware, I live. I hunger! RWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!) I was surprised too.

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	5. A Little Personal

Disclaimer: Caution: Speaking to, looking at, or even thinking of Tingle for extended periods of time can cause irreparable physical and emotional damage. In clinical tests, prolonged exposure to Tingle has been shown to cause cancer. Read at your own risk.

AN: Ah, now, after that semi-depressing chapter on Knuckle, I bring us back to Tingle with a short something that set me against him from the moment I met him in Windwaker. Surely you all remember that humorous-yet-weird scene on Windfall Island...

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**A Little Personal**

It was a chilly, damp cell. Quite spacious, but permeated with the musty, earthy scent of mushrooms and decay. The jail on Windfall Island had clearly gone unused, thanks to the island's peaceful community, until this loon showed up.

The loon in question was a short, middle-aged man with beady eyes and a sly little moustache, dressed head to foot in green, who introduced himself as Tingle. Link didn't know quite what to expect from the strange little convict, but he certainly wasn't expecting what he heard after he was spotted. With a short, shocked gasp, Tingle leapt up and raced over to the bars of his cell.

"Those green clothes... Sir! Are you, perhaps, a fairy?!"

Link froze, unsure of how to respond. What a question! A little personal for an ice-breaker, don't you think?!

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AN: Aye, I went there. I really did. (Ahem.) Anyway! This shall be the last short, now that my rage, indignation, and irkedness with Tingle (and with having to pay him three thousand, three hundred, and eighty-five rupees to save the world) has been fully converted to word form. Thanks for reading and later, all!

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End file.
